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Monday, September 6, 2010

Mondays are Dark

Hope you're having a great Labor Day; we're kicking back, and spending much of the day in the pool. It's a plan. In the meantime, here's your Monday reading list.

Carbonell News
In case you're wondering which plays are in the running for nominations, here's the complete list, sorted by theatre. But the real news is the creation of a panel to discuss how to judge design elements. The panel includes some of the top designers in the eligible fields. Before we get a slew of heated comments, it's my understanding that the panel will be teaching the judges what to look for, not actually judging the nominees.

She Came from South FloridaThe South Florida Times talks with JoMarie Payton, who grew up in Opa Locka, appeared in A Raisin in the Sun at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, the national tour of Purlie, eventually going on to work on TV in shows like Perfect Strangers and Family Matters. You might also recognize her voice as Suga Mama on Disney's animated The Proud Family.

Teen Ambassadors will provide their peers with a unique link to the performing arts by attending various performances, including Broadway touring shows, at the Broward Center, and writing reviews for immediate posting, tweeting and Facebook status updating. Each participant will receive a Broward Center Teen Ambassador I.D. badge, earn community service hours and gain a better understanding of working behind the scenes at an arts organization that is consistently ranked in the top 10 venues in the world.

Even if a reviewer writes for a well-known publication, there's no quick way of guaranteeing they're an experienced professional rather than a volunteer enthusiast: financially squeezed regional newspapers in particular are supplementing their professional review teams with unpaid amateur critics.

Yah. We noticed. Boy, have we noticed!

Meanwhile...The Shiny Sheet reports that the Royal Poinciana Playhouse is still closed.

A lot of time has been spent on these referendum efforts to preserve the Playhouse, closed since 2004, and turn it back into an active theater — and subsequently by the town in challenging their constitutionality. The PAC’s energies would be better spent on helping create a credible plan and raising all the money, to making some viable theater effort and convincing the plaza owners that it and the Theater Guild are capable of managing it — not by forcing the owners to bend to legal threats to open a theater that will fail.

Since every designer listed is usually on the list of nominees, they really can't be judges. No one on the panel currently works at any of the eligible theatres, or works freelance in an eligible category.